WWE revealed the first name to be inducted into the Hall of Fame this year on Monday. This class is historic because Vince McMahon did not select any members of the class. Triple H holds that distinction.
The WWE executive chose Paul Heyman to be the first inductee and likely headliner because the ceremony will take place in Philadelphia, the iconic home of ECW, following SmackDown, on April 5th at the Wells Fargo Center during WrestleMania weekend.
While speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer mentioned that Heyman had previously declined the induction.
“So this is a trivia note. But this will be the first Hall of Fame class that was chosen by Paul Levesque, and not chosen by Vince McMahon. So Paul Heyman is the first Paul Levesque Hall of Famer. That’s an interesting part of it. He’s been offered the Hall of Fame before and turned it down with the idea that, you know, he’s still active, he didn’t think he should be in the Hall of Fame until his career is over. But I think the idea of maybe being the first Paul Levesque inductee, and it’s in Philadelphia, where ECW was from and one of his main career claims to fame as ECW maybe his biggest in some ways. So there’s that. Maybe they just needed a main eventer, and he’s the guy and they, you know, whatever. There’s a lot of different reasons, but I mean, it’s like he has been offered this before. And I mean, as far as I can see, deserving, of course, he is, I mean, there’s a lot of people in the WWEHall of Fame, that you can say is questionable and he ain’t one of them.”
